Hundreds of garments factory workers took to the streets in Ashulia on Saturday when the authorities of a factory announced suspending the factory operations and sacking over 700 of its regular workers. The factory workers demanded immediate reinstatement of their regular jobs protesting in front of the factory premises.
The ready-made garment (RMG) factory - Sigma Fashion Ltd at Narshinghapur area in Ashulia made the announcement of sacking 709 of its workers by issuing a notice amid growing cancellation of orders in the global economic crisis amidst the current coronavirus outbreak.
The notice stated, "All kinds of export-oriented product manufacturing has been stopped and all International buyer order has been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak globally. The operation of the factory is not possible to run properly in this situation; therefore, authority is announcing factory layoffs from last April 01 to until May 31."
The notice also stated that the workers and staff members stated into the notice were sacked from April 18, according to the Bangladesh labor act-2006 under section 12 and 16. Kazoli Begum, a worker of the factory said, "I have been working at the factory for 8 years. The sacking decision comes when they have not even paid many of our salaries. We have not been able to pay house rent and buy essentials. This decision is surely punishing us.”
Md Kamran, a leader of the factory workers union said, “The decision is completely insane. How can they take such decision when people like us are suffering without basic food? We tried to speak to the authority concerned but got no result.”
On other hand this correspondent could not reach Mizanur Rahman, Managing Director of the factory despite making several phone calls.
Jane Alam Khan, Assistant Superintendent of Industrial police-1 told Bangladesh Post, "We urged the factory owners not to take such decision at a time like this. However, we are trying to solve the problem and additional police personnel are deployed at the factory gate to avoid unwanted situations."
